Topband: Height of antenna and takoff angle - Titan II site 571-5

[Frederick Wagner]

The article and discussion about W3CRA's wonderful results reminded me of my tour of duty as a 

Missile Combat Crew Commander at Davis-Monthan AFB near Tucson. My primary site, now destroyed,
was about 500 feet above the valley floor for headings about 300 through 345 - and the antenna was a 

military Collins Discone over a military grade radial field, and the discone could be fed at the base as a folded cage monopole - 

that monopole was about 60 feet tall and the cage was at least 45 feet in diameter.
My 'free' time to operate was mainly at night, and I'd take my Century-21 transceiver to the site, and run some RG-58 from 

my commander's console down to where I could tie into the antenna switching relay (our site rarely had to use HF for
communications). On 80 CW, at night, on that antenna, in the late 1970's, working up into WA, BC, AK, JA and on to the rest of Asia
was like calling down a quiet hallway. The only Titan II site left in Tucson is 571-6 down in the valley next to I-19, 

preserved as the Titan Missile Museum, and visiting hams can tie into the discone  - but it sits next to a mountain of mine tailings,
with none of the takeoff  angle advantages that the site across the valley and up the hill had.
If anyone wants to see the location, follow the two lane road East out of Green Valley AZ up to the mouth of Madera Canyon.
Near the mountain, you'll see some faded Orange Fiberglass globes on the HV powerlines. We periodically had military Helicopters
visiting the site, and those balls were so the helos would know where the site, and the powerlines were.
My callsign in those days was W7HSS - I occasionally operated from other sites west of the copper mines, but the best results
were always from my home site, 571-5

Fred Wagner
KQ6Q (ex W7HSS, W5QDL, K(N)6VVD